The Damascened Blade (16 page)

With shrill applause in which Lily joined, the game wound its way onwards. The Afridis were all out for ninety-eight and Bobby Carstairs hit a winning six amid boos and hisses from half the spectators and cheers from the other half. The Afghanis invaded the pitch. They’d evidently decided amongst themselves to take a ball each and pass the bat from hand to hand with the applause and encouragement of the watching Scouts.

‘They are damned odd,’ said Eddy. ‘Just watching them you’d say – natural cricketers. They’ve been doing this for all of ten minutes and they’re showing more skill than your average county side!’

‘Politically,’ said Joe, ‘it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they carried this back to Kabul but I’m not sure that Afghans would qualify either by birth or residence to play for All India.’

‘Oh, I expect we could fiddle our way round that. Fiddle your way round anything if you want to.’ And Eddy shouted encouragement in Pushtu to the perspiring Afghan batsmen as they stood queuing to play. ‘Of course, the game could have been invented for these chaps. Brilliant hand and eye co-ordination but something else as well – patience and planning. They’ll wait for days, months, years even to get something right. Clever tacticians. I wonder what we’ve started?’

‘There’s Iskander lining up at the wicket. Obviously, he’s played the game before,’ said Joe as a mighty sweep of the bat sent the ball winging over the boundary to deafening applause from his men.

They went down together to welcome in the players. Lily, Joe noticed, went straight to Iskander to congratulate him on his men’s showing and his own sparkling performance.

‘Good Lord! The girl thinks she’s at some awful American shindig! Handing out the rosettes and the silver cup.’ The disapproving drawl came from Edwin Burroughs. ‘Can’t you keep that filly on a tighter rein, Sandilands? She’s doing her kind no credit, you know. She’s doing
us
no credit.’

Joe felt it would have taken up an hour of his time to challenge Burroughs’ views. Instead he hurried forward to add his own warm comments on the game. Though Iskander and Lily were standing a good four feet away from each other Joe had, and not for the first time, the uncomfortable feeling that if he walked between them he would trip on some unseen connecting thread. Perhaps he ought to ask her to take her suspect surveillance a little less seriously? Iskander, Joe thought, was for the moment treating her interest as sympathetic concern and natural high spirits but if she were not more careful he might become suspicious.

‘Hey! Why don’t you all stay another day?’ she was saying. ‘Then your men could take on the Scouts and have a proper game. That would be good, Joe, wouldn’t it?’

‘Lily, I really don’t think it’s up to us to rearrange the Amir’s timetable for him,’ Joe started to say but to his surprise he was interrupted by Iskander.

‘That is a very tempting suggestion, Miss Coblenz! Nothing would please my men more than to give a thrashing to the Scouts. If Major Lindsay were willing to extend his already generous hospitality for a further day it would delight us all. Our schedule is not so tight that we would be unable to stay for one more day. I will speak to Commander Lindsay.’

The blossoming of Iskander, as Joe thought of the change that had come over the young man since the loss of his commanding officer, continued through the day. Over the dinner table he entertained everyone with stories of the frontier and answered questions, however silly, on the Pathan way of life with patience and humour. Joe was intrigued to find that he had been educated not in England as had Zeman Khan but at the college in Peshawar. An orphan from an early age, he belonged to the same clan as Zeman and the two boys had been childhood friends. Joe could only begin to guess at the raw sorrow that he must be feeling at the loss of his friend. Unless, of course, he was himself responsible for Zeman’s death. The thought would not go away. If James had died Joe wondered if he would have been able to face a dinner party and do more than hold his own in a foreign language. He found his respect for Iskander continued to grow.

But, equally, his concern for Lily, with her obvious interest in the man, grew. At the end of the meal when all got up to leave the table Joe saw Lord Rathmore hurry to position himself by the door. As Lily passed in front of him he bent his head and whispered something to her which was evidently not to her liking. Before Lily had a chance to reply, Iskander had stepped between them and engaged Rathmore in conversation, allowing Lily to go on her way, evading Rathmore’s detaining arm. Protective? Proprietorial? Or something more sinister? The gesture disturbed Joe.

As Joe caught up with his charge he asked, ‘All well, Lily?’

She turned to him with shining eyes. ‘All’s very well, Joe. Apart from the appalling Rathmore. Did you see him just now? Some men just don’t know when to give up!’

‘What do you mean? What was he saying to you?’

‘Some nonsense about meeting me later this evening. I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. Trying for another date, I suppose! Man’s loco!’

‘Lily, I don’t want to have to bed down outside your room every night but if it comes to that you know I will! If I have the slightest suspicion that your, er, peace of mind is being threatened by anyone . . .
anyone
. . . I shall take steps.’

‘Joe, thanks for the offer but my, er, peace of mind is quite robust enough to take care of itself,’ she said and darted ahead in the direction of the guest wing.

Joe was overtaken by James and they walked along together, discussing the evening. As they went through the front door, Joe paused. Something had changed. Looking about he noticed that Minto’s kennel had disappeared.

‘What have you done with Minto?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry to say I’ve had to remove him lock, stock and kennel up to our room. I had two complaints this morning, complaints on the grounds of hygiene and noise. The first was from Burroughs. He’s convinced the dog is suffering from some sort of Indian dog disease – rabies or some such – and is afraid he’ll pass it on to him. He’s of the opinion that this is what killed Zeman and can’t understand why Grace is not taking his opinion seriously.’

‘And the second?’

‘Lord Rathmore. Claims the dog rushes out and makes a noise every time he walks by his kennel and this is a serious restriction on Rathmore’s freedom of movement. Freedom of movement! Why he wants to creep around unobserved I’ve no idea. Not the sort of chap who would make off with the regimental silver in the night, is he?’

‘Just the sort of chap! Minto’s a good judge of character.’

‘Well, I’m not happy with the new arrangements I can tell you! What we’ve got up there now is a
ménage à trois
– in which I come a bad
troisième
.’

A light tap on his door woke Joe at dawn the next day. The orderly who stood there was obviously in the grip of a barely contained excitement. His message was that Joe should go down to the main gates at once where he would find James. ‘There is trouble, sahib,’ he added. ‘Much, much trouble!’

Chapter Nine

James, in the light of flares, was calling out orders to a group of men. ‘Trackers! Limited reconnaissance. Out for five minutes then return and report initial findings. Eddy – have them picketed, will you? This could be a trap and none of my men are walking into it unprotected. And, Eddy, prepare to take out a full gasht. Muster here in thirty minutes. Now where are the second watch sentries? Line them up. Picket gate sentries? Well, look harder and further! Joe!’ He walked over to Joe, grim, alert, every inch the commanding officer.

‘What the hell’s going on, James?’

‘The Afghanis have disappeared. Decamped in the night. No idea yet why, when or how. But we soon will have. Come and hear the sentries with me, will you?’

Translating for Joe he gave the gist of the men’s story. ‘No trouble in the night on any of the watches. The bloke on the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. is the most interesting. Apparently the Afghanis were chattering and even singing round their fires until late in the night. All sounds ceased at 1 a.m. but the fires continued to burn. He didn’t hear thirty-five horses clattering off in the night. We’ll go out and have a look, shall we? But, just for once, arm yourself, will you?’

James and Joe walked, revolver in hand, through the gates and round the corner of the fort until they reached the football field encampment. Fires were collapsing into piles of white ash and embers in front of tents which looked as though they still housed sleeping soldiers. A glance up at the fortifications told Joe that they were being covered from every angle by watchful riflemen as they made their way around the encampment.

‘I can’t see how thirty-five horses and thirty-one men and two pack mules could have got away without someone being aware of it,’ said Joe.

‘You don’t know Pathans,’ said James. ‘They can fade into the night without a sound. This is how I think they did it. Look.’ He pointed to the beginnings of a trail of horses’ hooves only just becoming visible in the strengthening light, heading towards the tarmacked road to the Khyber. ‘See, it’s one set of hooves overlying another, not spread out on a wide front. I think a few men made a racket to cover the departure of the rest of the troop who must have set off one at a time, let’s say at one-minute intervals, so that all there ever was to hear was a single horse at any time and never a horde of thirty-five. They could have cleared the camp in under an hour. I’ve sent trackers to make a preliminary survey and we’ll hear what they have to say in a minute or two.’

They wandered around looking into abandoned tents and finding no remains of the Afghans. Items borrowed from the fort had been meticulously cleaned and left behind.

‘Why? Why, James? Iskander dropped no hint of this. He led us to believe he was intending to stay another day. What’s gone wrong?’

‘We don’t know yet but you can be sure that there can be nothing reassuring about this way of leaving. It’s against all the rules of hospitality. It’s against all I’d come to think of Iskander in fact. I’m worried, Joe.’

The returning trackers reported as James had feared that the single line of hooves continued to move alongside the tarmacked road, taking the soft ground to one side of it, and, as far as they had been able to establish, it went on up towards the Khyber. Back to Afghanistan.

‘Grace?’ said Joe. ‘Is Grace still aboard or have they taken her with them?’

‘Still here. And as puzzled as we are. They told her nothing about this.’

‘I don’t suppose Iskander’s been left behind by any chance?’ said Joe uneasily. ‘They haven’t gone off without him as well, have they? I mean, how did he get out of the fort?’

‘I checked his room quickly on the way down when the alarm was raised. Not there. Bed not been slept in. And it wouldn’t be difficult for someone agile to shin over the wall and down when the sentry’s back was turned. This damn fort’s designed to keep people out, not necessarily in. But if my guess is right he used a much simpler method.’

‘The picket gate?’

‘That’s right. The duty sentries have disappeared. Absconded, taking their rifles with them. They were both Afridis. Yes, Iskander’s tribe.’

Joe kicked at a glowing log angrily. ‘All that fraternization at the cricket match yesterday! Plenty of opportunity to get alongside long-lost kinsmen, ask a few questions, persuade the right pair to desert.’

‘But why, Joe? Why?’

‘Let’s go back to his room. See if there’s anything there in the way of a clue to this behaviour.’

The room showed no sign of occupation. The bed was unruffled, the rugs straight, the equipment in order.

‘Look! There!’ said Joe, pointing to the bedside table. There was an envelope addressed to Commander Lindsay in English and what he guessed to be Urdu. ‘I know what this is going to say,’ said Joe nervously as James opened it. ‘It’s going to say, “Dear Mother, Army’s a bugger. Sell the pig and buy me out.”’ He peered anxiously over James’s shoulder and they read the letter together.

To Major James Lindsay, Commandant, Fort Gor Khatri.

April 20 1922.

From Muhammed Iskander Khan, Captain, Service of HM the Amir of Afghanistan.

Enclosed please find copies of the report on the death of my kinsman and commanding officer, Major Zeman Khan, which occurred at the fort of Gor Khatri at a time uncertain in the early hours of the morning on the 20th instant.

It is with regret that I am unable to accept the finding of death by natural causes as established by the medical examination and subsequent deliberations, flawed, as it is, by inconsistencies. I believe my comrade to have been murdered by person or persons unknown.

Closely bound by ties of blood to my kinsman Zeman Khan, you will understand, Major Lindsay, that I am bound to avenge his death. If it were known who had killed Major Zeman Khan I would already have taken steps to avenge him. The British Army would then seek reprisals against me and my men and His Majesty the Amir would, in turn, become involved in an escalating spiral of bloody reprisal.

I believe you, Major Lindsay, to be, like me, a civilized man who would prefer to avoid senseless bloodshed and I offer you a solution to our problem. Firstly, the conclusion of the medical examination must be set aside and secondly, the identity of the person guilty of Major Zeman Khan’s death must be discovered. The guilty man must be charged and judged by you. You have lived and worked and fought with our people; you understand melmastia; you will understand that my kinsman was a guest in the fort and under your protection. The murderer is thus doubly guilty. He must be executed and by a firing squad of British soldiers before the gates of the fort a week from now, at noon on the 27th of April. Badal will accordingly be satisfied. The chain of vengeance will be broken with the death at British hands of the man responsible.

The Amir will be satisfied as will Zeman’s kin and they will not feel obliged to take further action. To ensure that you carry out the execution I have taken the precaution of removing one man from the fort as hostage. Lord Rathmore is accompanying us – unwillingly. He will be released to you when you have done your duty.